


Team Photo

by Batsutousai



Series: FMA Ship Week Fics [31]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Live Action), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Stargate - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stargate Fusion, Ficlet, Gen, M/M, Metafiction, RoyEd Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 18:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20295940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsutousai/pseuds/Batsutousai
Summary: "General," Roy called, still looking up at Grumman, becausehe'dbeen the one to insist all of the SG teams get photos in front of the open gate. Something about team-building or introducing newbies or whatever; Roy hasn't really been paying a whole lot of attention to that part of the briefing, far more interested in getting a hot shower and falling into a proper bed after their too-long mission to P6X-something, something, something. 182, he was pretty sure, but the uninhabited worlds with sprawling ruins and lots of rocks digging into his back through the sleep rolls started to merge together after a while.What he wouldn't give for a good old-fashioned Homunculus attack, but they'd been pretty quiet since Major Kimblee and SG-4 had taken out half of Pride's fleet with an over-powered pea-shooter they'd found on P2X-666 (renumbered as such by request, because it had been 'hot as hell' by all accounts).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For day 7 of @royedweek2019, have a Stargate AU edit and ficlet. (Also, on AO3, find a pile of ideas/notes/backstory you may read or not, as you chose.)  
I actually initially through to put this for day 5 (sci-fi AU), but then I ended up with two moodboards, so free day!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the note at the end of this chapter if you want/need to know more about the fandom this AU is borrowing from.

"Dâdash, you promised," Alphonse said; over a year on Earth, and he still hadn't given up on using the odd little endearment from his native language, though he otherwise spoke perfect Amestrisan. (Dr Tucker, who was the closest thing they had to a non-native expert on alien languages—unfortunately; something about the man always got Roy's hackles up—was convinced it was a title of respect, but Roy had heard Alphonse use it in too many tones of voice to buy that. More likely, it was a pet name or...something. <strike>There was a reason Roy left alien languages to the two aliens on his team, okay?</strike>)

Edward, who was already halfway out of the gateroom, shot a narrow glare at where Maes had just entered from the other side. "No one said anything about _soul stealing_," he snarled.

The insulted noise Maes let out probably would have won him an Emmy, it was so dramatically overdone.

Next to Roy, Riza let out that muted little cough that he knew meant she was covering a laugh, and he rolled his eyes, glancing up at where General Grumman was watching them from the control room. Their superior officer wasn't even _trying_ to hide his mirth, and Roy suspected that, should someone hit the mic control, they'd be hearing his cackle in stereo; yeah, Roy remained convinced that the general had been behind teaching Edward that particular outdated belief, just to give Roy a headache.

(That, or Riza had done it and let her grandfather in on the plot, which meant they were enjoying Roy's misery together. Which he really won't put past them, but he generally expected better of Riza.)

"_Dâdash_," Alphonse said in a tone that was so full of unimpressed reproof, Roy decided he was the real winner of the Emmy. Especially since it couldn't be easy to pull that amount of feeling into the hollow, tin-can voice he was stuck with.

"General," Roy called, still looking up at Grumman, because _he'd_ been the one to insist all of the SG teams get photos in front of the open gate. Something about team-building or introducing newbies or whatever; Roy hasn't really been paying a whole lot of attention to that part of the briefing, far more interested in getting a hot shower and falling into a proper bed after their too-long mission to P6X-something, something, something. 182, he was pretty sure, but the uninhabited worlds with sprawling ruins and lots of rocks digging into his back through the sleep rolls started to merge together after a while.

What he wouldn't give for a good old-fashioned Homunculus attack, but they'd been pretty quiet since Major Kimblee and SG-4 had taken out half of Pride's fleet with an over-powered pea-shooter they'd found on P2X-666 (renumbered as such by request, because it had been 'hot as hell' by all accounts).

Grumman motioned to Sergeant Fuery, and the PA in the gateroom crackled to life. _"Edward, you are required to stand through one photo."_

"Or what?" Edward demanded, glancing up at the control room, although Roy was fairly certain that, from his angle, the light reflecting off the bullet-proof glass would block his view.

"Or you're grounded," Roy announced, because he did remember that much from the briefing. (A threat of grounding was one of the few things that would get him to agree to playing model for Maes' photography fetish.)

Edward shot one last poisonous glare up at the control room, then walked back over to the rest of their team, muttering something under his breath that made Alphonse let out a sigh; Roy suspected it was a good thing he didn't speak half the languages the Xerxesians could.

Maes spent the next five minutes trying to get them to stand exactly where he wanted them—it probably would have worked a lot better if he hadn't slipped and implied Edward needed to be in the front because he was the shortest; _everyone_ knew you didn't mention Edward's height if you wanted his cooperation—until Grumman finally ordered, _"Just take the damn photo, Lieutenant Colonel."_

As soon as the photo was taken and Grumman had dismissed them so SG-3 could take their place, Roy's team made their escape.

Roy caught Edward up on the way to his lab-cum-library. "Alphonse staying to watch the photos?" he guessed.

Edward huffed and slid him the fondly tolerant glance that Roy was fairly was reserved only for himself and Alphonse. "Do you _enjoy_ stating the obvious, or...?" He made that enquiring little hand motion Roy was fairly certain had been stolen from himself.

Roy sighed and shrugged off the heavy coat he'd insisted he be allowed to wear for the photo, folding it carefully over one arm. "It's called making conversation, Edward," he said for what was probably the hundredth or so time since he'd convinced a too-small alien guard that he could save a roomful of people from the Homunculi who had stolen them away from their homes.

The glint in Edward's golden eyes promised he knew _exactly_ what Roy was doing, and he was enjoying tormenting him about it.

Roy cleared his throat and smoothed a hand over the fabric of his coat, glancing ahead to judge how much longer he'd be able to hold Edward's attention; experience had taught him that trying to talk to him while he was in his lab was a lost cause, unless Roy brought food. (And, even then, it only worked if the food required more than one hand to eat.) "How long are you going to pretend to believe cameras can steal your soul?" Because he didn't, for one moment, believe Edward honestly _bought_ that superstition.

The smirk Edward shot him before he turned away to step into his lab spoke _volumes_.

Roy huffed out a noise that could have been either amusement or annoyance and turned to return his coat to his office, doing his best to ignore the warmth that always settled into his chest in response to that smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to think that no knowledge of the _Stargate_ franchise is necessary for this, but this fandom has been familiar to me for too many years, now, for me to be certain about that. So, basics is: There's this great ring that gets found in Egypt, which got buried to keep aliens from coming through it and continuing their enslavement of the human race. When it's powered and you dial the correct 'address' (a series of six symbols shaped like constellations plus your 'home' symbol; think of it like dialling someone's phone number, except the area/country code is at the end, rather than the beginning, and actually is for _your_ position, rather than the position of whoever you're calling) and a wormhole opens, creating a nearly instantaneous path between two planets. Due to the star sign symbols, it's called the 'stargate' on Earth.  
Stargate Command, or the SGC, is a military (technically, air force) installation deep underground in Cheyenne Mountain, USA, where the stargate is located. SG teams (usually groups of 4, but there's no hard and fast rule about size) consisting of military personal and some few civilian contractors (&, presumably, aliens, though SG-1 is the only team shown having an alien member in the SG1 series) go through the stargate to explore other planets, fight the alien species that originally enslaved humanity (the Gou'ald) to free the other people of the galaxy.  
The SGC has a commanding officer, rank of general, that oversees everything and only goes on missions in an emergency. SG-1, the initial SG team, is headed by the second ranking officer, a colonel, and includes a female lieutenant, a civilian archaeologist & linguist, and a former slave/soldier of a powerful Gou'ald.
> 
> Hopefully that's enough of a setting to help you understand, a bit, what's going on in this piece.


	2. Meta/Background

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stargate AU! A meta/background/spazz addition, because I failed at writing a full fic—<strike>tbh, I mostly just ran out of time, between rewatching SG1 & SGA & work</strike>—but I had a shit-ton of ideas and I kinda wanted to share them. And, you know, organise them a _little_ bit better than they currently are on my writing notes discord. ^^;

  * Edward and Alphonse are both from a world enslaved by the Homunculi, the alien species ruling most of their galaxy. Their father vanished when they were quite young—rumours have it he was looking to join a rebellion, but no one's heard from him in decades—and their mother was killed by Envy, the Homunculus who rules their planet, for some slight neither brother ever understood. (Although Edward has privately always believed it was their father's fault.)  
After their mother's death, Alphonse fell especially ill, and Envy came in, promising he could save him, so long as Edward, who was already becoming known as a strong warrior, would serve among his royal guard. Edward agreed, for his brother's sake.
  * Envy was not, in fact, a benevolent sort of ruler, and Alphonse's illness was, in fact, his doing. It took Edward nearly a decade to realise that Envy punished failures by torturing his brother—he'd honestly believed, for a time, that Alphonse's sudden relapses were Envy's seemingly magical medicines failing in some way—but realising only left him with no other option but to serve as the best member of Envy's guard as he could, even going so far as to lose limbs, which Envy too-cheerfully replaced with metal prosthetics, the installation of which were far from painless.
  * On Earth, a bloody world war is just coming to a close, with Amestris the apparent victor. Roy, Riza, Maes, Breda, and Havoc are among those soldiers assigned to a secret, underground bunker to guard some sort of giant ring that was found in the desert. After not quite two months, around the time Roy is seriously considering suicide, while Maes does his best to hold him back, the ring activates and a group of armoured figures step through, kill most everyone in the room with the ring, and kidnap Havoc.  
Roy, Riza, and Maes are assigned to the team to get him back, as soon as the science team figures out how to get the gateway to open again (it only takes them a week).  
When they go through, they find themselves on another planet, and end up being taken to a room of what seem to be other humans, all crammed in together. There, they find Havoc, and start discussing escape strategies.
  * Before the Amestrisans can escape, the armoured figures troop in, and one opens his helmet to reveal Edward, who has since been made the leader of Envy's royal guard. In a language the Amestrisans can't understand, he tells the crowd that some among them will receive a great honour. Envy walks in, with some minor Homunculi (none of the canon crew, bear with me), and they walk around, picking out people from the crowd and dragging them from the room.  
Havoc is one of those stolen, and Roy almost gets shot by Edward's strange weapon when he tries to save Havoc—he, after all, is the commanding officer; of _course_ it's his duty to be dragged off to what he can only assume is torture or death. When Maes grabs Roy's arm and pulls him back, though, Edward lowers his weapon and nods at Maes, as though in thanks for stepping in.
  * (They later learn that Havoc has been injected with some sort of alien compound, which turned him into one of the Homunculi. He would become known as Havoc of Chaos, and they'll have many battles against him, trying so desperately to save the human they all want to believe is still left inside.)
  * Once the Homunculi and their captives are gone, Edward rejoins the line of armoured figures and they all turn their weird energy weapons on the remaining people in the room; it's pretty clearly a firing squad.  
Roy, who has seen too much death, and can't stop thinking about Edward's nod to Maes, steps forward, dodging Maes' grabbing hand, and tells Edward, "I can save these people."  
And Edward, who is nearly thirty and done some terrible things for the sake of his little brother's life, _knows_ Alphonse won't forgive him if he takes part in this mass murder. And, looking at Roy, who was nothing like the other people huddled in the corners of the room, was a soldier and unafraid, he _wants_ to believe him. To believe he can save so many people, that he might be able to help Edward save his brother.
  * So Edward throws his lot in with Roy, throws him his weapon, and they band together, Riza backing them up as soon as she can grab a weapon, while Maes helps direct civilians out through the massive hole Edward had blown in the wall. Somehow, they all escape back to Earth.
  * Edward suffers through nearly a week of interrogation, while Roy argues for his release, for the higher-ups to _trust him_.  
When Edward is finally released, they find out about his brother, who Edward half believes is already dead. "Envy," he tells them, voice so full of bitterness, "is not a forgiving god."
  * Roy enlists the help of Riza, and they somehow manage to convince General Grumman to let them and Edward go back through the stargate on a rescue mission. Because, once asked, Edward admits he knows the address of the laboratory where his brother was being held.  
Somehow, through some miracle—or, Edward insists it must be a miracle—the laboratory isn't well guarded. And, when they reach Alphonse's cell, they find he's still alive. (Although, calling being trapped inside a massive metal suit, because he can't survive outside of it, 'living' is something of a misnomer.)
  * Alphonse is rescued and brought back to the SGC. Edward, after nearly two weeks of tinkering that none of the Amestrisans can claim to understand, though some do try, Alphonse is able to move around in his suit.
  * With their rescue mission a success, and the assurance that Edward and Alphonse would never betray the Amestrisans to any of the Homunculi, not after what Envy did to Alphonse—to _both_ of them; Edward was the only one who seemed to think his metal limbs weren't horrifying, especially once the Amestrisans found out how painful they'd been—the brothers were allowed to join SG teams. Roy requested Edward, since they were clearly able to work well together, and Edward insisted he would only be on a team with Alphonse. Given everything the brothers had gone through, Grumman wasn't hard to convince.
  * Alphonse's massive metal body serves both as a defensible position to hide behind, and gives him far more strength for the sake of physical fighting. Due to spending nearly two decades trapped in a laboratory and being tortured at Envy's whim, he is rather more childish than most of the SGC is comfortable with. He also struggles a lot with their language, at first, and Edward does a lot of acting as translator. Alphonse does manage to pick up their language remarkably quickly, by Amestrisan standards. He's clever and curious about everything, and always polite, which makes him easy to like. Unfortunately, because of his body, he's unable to leave the SGC and see Amestris, which he regrets, but is always quick to insist that it's better to be alive and trapped in the SGC, than dead or still trapped in the lab. (It's also true that he's able to regularly go through the stargate, something which he is always quick to point out to Edward when he starts getting a particular look in his eyes.)
  * As the former head of Envy's guard, Edward is an excellent fighter, both with the Homunculi energy weapons, and physical, where his metal arm and leg give his attacks a certain weight behind them that are deadly if they connect, and it doesn't take him much to learn how to used the gunpowder-based Amestrisan weaponry. He also speaks almost two dozen languages, which makes him invaluable to to SGC whenever they come across a race that doesn't speak a language similar enough to an Earth language for their small team of linguists to muddle through. He's not very patient with most people, though he definitely has a soft spot for Alphonse and also seems to give Roy more leeway than any other Amestrisan, and while his temper seems to have a hair trigger, the more observant among the SGC believe that's mostly an act he puts on to see how much he can get away with.
  * Roy, upon finding a war worth fighting for, and more people worth living for than Maes, stops contemplating suicide. He also gives up drinking altogether after the first time Edward finds him drunk as a skunk—he suspects Maes' hand, but neither of them will confirm—and makes it clear that, if he ever smells alcohol on Roy's breath again, he'll switch to a different SG team. Roy isn't quite sure _why_ it's so important to him that Edward remain in his team, but he'll figure it out eventually. (Maes' half-teasing hints are getting less and less subtle every week.)
  * Maes leads SG-2, with Alex Armstrong, Danny Brosh, and Maria Ross. He takes a lot more pictures of his wife and daughter, especially around the city, so he can bring them back and show Alphonse, who treasures the opportunities to see the world he's now living in. Maes keeps threatening to bring a pet down for Alphonse, but he's been constantly told no. (Somehow, Alphonse got a cat, anyway.)
  * While Riza's appointment as a member of SG-1 was mostly Grumman's doing, she and Roy end up working nearly perfectly together, and something about her tone when she gives an order, makes even Edward at his most surly quick to obey, which Roy and Maes like to snicker about with each other when neither of them are in hearing range.
  * General George Grumman is the SGC's commanding officer, and while he regrets not being able to go through the stargate regularly, he appreciates that he's a little too old for such. His personal aid is Vato Falman, while Kain Fuery is in charge of the small crew the sit at the gate controls. The SGC's head surgeon is Dr Knox, who bitches about his patients every chance he gets, but none of them would dare to trust another person seeing to their wounds.


End file.
